Islands

Transcript (PDF): archives.gov CREATED BY Office for Emergency Management. Office of War Information. Overseas Operations Branch. New York Office. News and Features Bureau. (12/17/1942 – 09/15/1945) SUMMARY Kwajalein is bombarded from the air, from naval guns off shore, and from artillery batteries on a nearby atoll. US troops land and advance inland under a constant artillery barrage. Flamethrowers and pack charges are used against pillboxes. Japanese prisoners are deloused and given medical treatment. Adm. Nimitz witnesses the raising of the American flag. SUBJECT o Artillery o Flame throwers o Japanese prisoners of war o World War, 1939-1945 o Nimitz, Chester W. (Chester William), 1885-1966 * Contributors to Authorship and/or Production of the Archival Materials: o United News Company., Producer For more information: arcweb.archives.govVideo Rating: 5 / 5

M/Sgt Jorge G. Herrera, Jr. discovered just what kind of a soldier he was when the Imperial Japanese Forces invaded Negros Islands in the Philippines during World War II. His heroic tale can now be told in the exciting new book, “Dare & Live.”

The superior Imperial Japanese Forces overrun the spirited defenses that the combined United States and Philippine Commonwealth Government Armies put up in the battles for Bataan and the Island fortress of Corrigedor. The US-Philippines defenses crumbled against the onslaught of superiority of numbers of the Japanese soldiers, the naval and aerial bombardments. The valiant defenders had only one option: surrender. The Japanese Forces went on mopping operations on the more than 1,700 islands and islets of the Philippine Archiepelago. The Island defenders under orders of the Military High Command in Manila, the capital city of the Philippines, gave up resistance.

In Negros Islands of central Philippines, M/Sgt Jorge G. Herrera vowed he would never surrender to the Japanese Army; so he gathered 3 Filipinos and they started the recruiment and training of other Guerrilla Soldiers. The Japanese Army cordoned Bacolod City, the capital of Negros islands where the US and Filipino surrenderees were imprisoned. The Japanese soldiers guarded every entrances and exits of the City, still M/Sgt Herrera escaped from the heavily-guarded City under the very noses of the Japanese Army sentinels.

It is worth reading the whole story of Dare & Live and obtain the backgrounds that equipped M/Sgt Herrera in his decision of fighting the whole Japanese Army that occupied Negros Islands for three long years of World War II.

It is a wonder how M/Sgt Herrera secured arms and ammunitions when the Japanese Army divested all US and Filipino Soldiers upon their surrender, suspected as non-surrenderees and killed anyone caught in possession of weapons. Herrera went on to recruit and train over a hundred soldiers and armed most of them. He established a Bivouac at the mountain sides of Negros Islands and equipped his hideout with telephone communication for fast intelligence. He staged many ambushes against the Japanese soldiers and was an only Filipino Guerrilla Leader who captured, alive, 21 Japanese soldiers in one ambush encounter. To try to capture him, the Japanese army even hired a Filipina Spy and sent her on a secret mission to entrap M/Sgt Herrera. Read how Herrera discovered the plot of the Japanese Army against him, before it could unfold.

How the Filipino Guerrilla Fighters fought the Japanese soldiers in Negros Islands during the three long years of World War II, was akin to how the Terrorist mounted resistance against the United States Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is of immense importance that a Superior Military Power should take cognizance of what the enemies on the opposite side of the war zone could utilize to mount stiff opposition and inflict maximum destruction.

Dare & Live is a profile in courage, ingenuity, and innovation worthy of study and emulation times of personal crisis.

The lessons of World War II was true 50 years ago; they still ring true today!

Born in Negros Islands, Philippines, now Resident of New Jersey, USA, he is the Author of Dare & Live,the tale of an incredible World War II Survivor who created a Guerrilla Army to battle the Japnese in Negros Islands, Philippines, after the battles for Bataan and Corrigedor were lost.